The Society of Saint Gregory the Great is a membership association of Catholic laity formed in 2008 to promote divine worship in accordance with the Supreme Magisterium of the Church. The Society has its own schola cantorum, and regularly sponsors presentations and workshops on the Sacred Liturgy, Gregorian chant, and sacred polyphony.

Friday, February 24, 2012

Fasting: St. Francis de Sales

In the Ash Wednesday Mass I attended, the homily came from the pen of St. Francis de
Sales, the patron saint of the Diocese of Baker. The source of the following
excerpts is Source: The
Sermons of St. Francis de Sales for Lent.

Ideally,
I would have spread this out over Thursday, Friday, and Saturday after Ash
Wednesday; however, constrained by circumstances, I missed the opportunity to
post on Thursday. We’ll squeeze the three day plan into two instead.

Here’s
Part I of the Saint’s sermon for Ash Wednesday (Part II is here):

FASTING

These first four days of the holy season of Lent serve as a
preface to indicate the preparation that we ought to make in order to spend
Lent well and to dispose ourselves to fast well. That is why I thought of speaking
to you, in this exhortation, of the conditions which render fasting good and meritorious…

To treat of fasting and of what is required to fast well, we
must, at the start, understand that of itself fasting is not a virtue. The good
and the bad, as well as Christians and pagans, observe it. The ancient
philosophers observed it and recommended it. They were not virtuous for that
reason, nor did they practice virtue in fasting. Oh, no, fasting is a virtue
only when it is accompanied by conditions which render it pleasing to God. Thus
it happens that it profits some and not others, because it is not undertaken by
all in the same manner.

We find some people who think that to fast well during the
holy season of Lent it is enough to abstain from eating some prohibited food.
But this thought is too gross to enter into the hearts of religious, for it is
to you I speak, as well as persons dedicated to Our Lord. We know very well
that it is not enough to fast exteriorly if we do not also fast interiorly and
if we do not accompany the fast of the body with that of the spirit.

That is why our Divine Master, who instituted the fast, greatly
desired in His Sermon on the Mount to teach His Apostles how it must be
practiced [Matt. 6:16-18], which is a matter of great profit and utility (for
it would not have been becoming to the greatness and majesty of God to teach a
useless doctrine. That could not be.). He knew that to draw strength and
efficacy from fasting, something more than abstinence from prohibited food is
necessary. Thus He instructed them and, consequently, disposed them to gather
the fruits proper to fasting. Among many others are these four: fasting fortifies
the spirit, mortifying the flesh and its sensuality; it raises the spirit to
God; it fights concupiscence and gives power to conquer and deaden its
passions; in short, it disposes the heart to seek to please only God with great
purity of heart.

It will be very helpful to state clearly what must be done to
fast well these forty days…Now, among all the conditions required for fasting
well, I will select three principal ones and speak familiarly about them.

The first condition is that we must fast with our whole
heart, that is to say, willingly, whole-heartedly, universally and entirely.

[St. Bernard] says that fasting was instituted by Our Lord
as a remedy for our mouth, for our gourmandizing and for our gluttony. Since
sin entered the world through the mouth, the mouth must do penance by being
deprived of foods prohibited and forbidden by the Church, abstaining from them
for the space of forty days. But this glorious saint adds that, as it is not our
mouth alone which has sinned, but also all our other senses, our fast must be
general and entire, that is, all the members of our body must fast. For if we
have offended God through the eyes, through the ears, through the tongue, and
through our other senses, why should we not make them fast as well? And not
only must we make the bodily senses fast, but also the soul's powers and
passions -- yes, even the understanding, the memory, and the will, since we
have sinned through both body and spirit.

How many sins have entered into the soul through the eyes, as
Holy Scripture indicates? [1 In. 2:16]. That is why they must fast by keeping
them lowered and not permitting them to look upon frivolous and unlawful
objects; the ears, by depriving them of listening to vain talk which serves
only to fill the mind with worldly images; the tongue, in not speaking idle
words and those which savor of the world or the things of the world. We ought
also to cut off useless thoughts, as well as vain memories and superfluous
appetites and desires of our will. In short, we ought to hold in check all
those things which keep us from loving or tending to the Sovereign Good. In
this way interior fasting accompanies exterior fasting.

This is what the Church wishes to signify during this holy time
of Lent, teaching us to make our eyes, our ears and our tongue fast. For this
reason she omits all harmonious chants in order to mortify the hearing; she no
longer says Alleluia, and clothes herself completely in somber and dark colors.
And on this first day she addresses us in these words: Remember, man, that you
are dust, and to dust you shall return [Gen. 3:19], as if she meant to say:
"Oh man, quit at this moment all joys and merrymaking, all joyful and pleasant
reflections, and fill your memory with bitter, hard and sorrowful thoughts. In
this way you will make your mind fast together with your body."

This is also what the Christians of the primitive Church taught
us when, in order to spend Lent in a better way, they deprived themselves at
this time of ordinary conversations with their friends, and withdrew into great
solitude and places removed from communication with people. For the same reason,
the ancient Fathers and the Christians of the year 400 or so were so careful to
spend these forty days well that they were not satisfied with abstaining from
prohibited meats, but even abstained from eggs, fish, milk and butter, and
lived on herbs and roots alone. And not content with making their bodies fast
in this manner, they made their minds and all the powers of the soul fast also.
They placed sackcloth on their heads in order to learn to keep their eyes
lowered. They sprinkled ashes on their heads as a sign of penitence. They withdrew
into solitude to mortify the tongue and hearing, neither speaking nor hearing
anything vain and useless. At that time they practiced great and austere
penances by which they subjected their body and made all its members fast. They
did all this with full liberty, neither forced nor constrained. Note how their
fast was accomplished whole-heartedly and universally; for they understood very
well that since not only the mouth has sinned, but also all the other senses of
our bodies and powers of our soul, the passions and appetites are full of
iniquities. It is thus reasonable that, in order to make our fast complete and
meritorious, it should be universal, which is to say, practiced in both body
and spirit. This is the first condition to be observed in order to fast well.